no title

Science shows some people are sugar addicts

Letters Policy

The Dispatch welcomes letters to the editor from readers. Typed letters of 200 words or
fewer are preferred; all might be edited. Each letter must include name, home address and daytime
phone number.
Dispatch.com also posts letters that don't make it to print in
The Dispatch.

I usually enjoyDispatchColumnist Joe Blundo’s entertaining articles. Yet on Day Two of
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, I was disappointed to see him make light of a serious
condition suffered by many of those with eating disorders (“Doc's claim about sugar put to test,”
Tuesday).

Sugar addiction (or food addiction), while not as attention-grabbing as drug addiction, is
similarly destructive to health. Further, being unable to stop eating and overeating processed, “
highly palatable” foods, including sugar, is as confusing and demoralizing to the food addict as
the inability to stop or reduce the use of alcohol or drugs is to the alcoholic and drug
addict.

Television gurus aside, respected scientists now support the idea that some people's brains
respond to sugar in the same way that other addicts’ brains respond to drugs of abuse.

For those who suffer from this strong physiological response to sugar and other foods and find
it impossible to stop overeating or compulsively eating these foods, there is help.

For information about food addiction, visit the Food Addiction Institute website at
www.foodaddictioninstitute.org. For immediate support, the local chapter of Overeaters Anonymous
can be reached at centralohiooa.org.